d become hooks by
which it can hang, without effort, in the midst of the leaves on which
it feeds. A minimum of intellect is required for such an existence, and
the sloth has lost any superfluous brain that it may have had, as well
as two, or even three, of its five toes.

To return to those birds and beasts with standard feet, I find that the
first outside purpose for which they find them serviceable is to scratch
themselves. This is a universal need. But a foot is handy in many other
ways. A hen and chickens, getting into my garden, transferred a whole
flower-bed to the walk in half an hour. Yet a bird trying to do anything
with its foot is like a man putting on his socks standing, and birds as
a race have turned their feet to very little account outside of their
original purpose. Such a simple thing as holding down its food with one
foot scarcely occurs to an ordinary bird. A hen will pull about a
cabbage leaf and shake it in the hope that a small piece may come away,
but it never enters her head to put her foot on it. In this and other
matters the parrot stands apart, and also the hawk, eagle, and owl; but
these are not ordinary birds.

Beasts, having twice as many feet as birds, have learned to apply them
to many uses. They dig with them, hold down their food with them, fondle
their children with them, paw their friends, and scratch their enemies.
One does more of one thing and another of another, and the feet soon
show the effects of the occupation, the claws first, then the muscles,
and even the bones dwindling by disuse, or waxing stout and strong. Then
the joy of doing what it can do well impels the beast further on the
same path, and its offspring after it.

[Illustration: THE NOSE OF THE ELEPHANT BECOMING A HAND HAS REDEEMED
ITS MIND]

And this leads at last to specialism. The Indian black bear is a "handy
man," like the British Tar--good all round. Its great soft paw is a very
serviceable tool and weapon, armed with claws which will take the face
off a man or grub up a root with equal ease. When a black bear has found
an ant-hill it takes but a few minutes to tear up the hard, cemented
clay and lay the deep galleries bare; then, putting its gutta-percha
muzzle to the mouth of each, it draws such a blast of air through them
that the industrious labourers are sucked into its gullet in drifts.
Afterwards it digs right down to the royal chamber, licks up the bloated
queen, and goes its way.

But there is a